de rien
by BirdPower
Summary: France and England dance around each other, both not willing to admit their feelings, constantly fighting. Germany is not happy about it and decides to change the situation.  slight FrUK and FrancexGermany
1. Chapter 1

The sound of the English's croaky voice was echoing between the marble walls.  
>Ludwig didn't need to look around to know, that the bystanding countries rolled their eyes as annoyed as he did.<br>While Francis talked to him with his sweetest voice, Arthur was boiling in anger. He was yelling, rampaging and misusing the hotel interior as a weapon.  
>Everything was just as it was normal, when France and England both entered an event.<br>The only one who had probably fun, was a certain American, who was apparently happy that he was for once not the cause for this outburst.

The reason was trivial in Ludwig's opinion. While he emptied his cup of coffee and nodded a silent „Good night" to Liechtenstein, who retracted to her room. She felt uneasy with all the yelling and was the first one, that left the foyer of the hotel and the both squabblers ( meanwhile Francis also began cussing)behind them.  
>Yes, the reason for the fight was easy.<br>Everyone, who had contact with the French, knew that he didn't miss a chance to share his bed with someone. For what ever reason England was his favorite „victim" and sometimes it seemed to Ludwig as if Arthur wasn't finding it too repellent.  
>Of course said English would never admit this, he had to keep his gentlemen image intact after all. Ludwig doubted, that it was going conform with the image of a gentleman to hang around with leacherous Frenchmen, who change their sex partner more often than their underwear.<p>

The German was considering to leave too, when he saw Austria and Russia exiting the room.  
>Ivan was someone, noone was bent on messing with and it was not exactly intelligent to annoy him.<br>Today he had to sit next to the gigantic Russian and he the unusual feeling to be very small and slender...he didn't really disliked Ivan, but he was appreciating some distance between them.  
>France and England probably felt the same, he supposed, because they tried to at least slightly control themself, when Russia was with them.<p>

Austria, had the unnerving habit to insult him with often contradicting and unfitting vituperations and always loved to show Ludwig how much he disliked the much younger relative, but they to some extend sane enough and both didn't like it when resources got wasted, which made working together with Roderich easy.  
>Also, the fact that Roderic was able to understand Ludwig's native tongue was a bit of a advantage in working quick and productive. Well...the German didn't really understood what Roderich was saying, but Austria knew how to understand German atleast. However...all in all there were less misunderstandings than in conversations in English in which both dialogue partners had learned it as a foreign language.<p>

Without both of them there was neither someone who's pure presence intimidating enough to keep the squabbles quite nore someone who was able to understand his signals quick enough to help him saving the hotel lobby.  
>For a moment he was asking himself why he even felt responsible for this mess, but he suppressed the thought quickly. If he wouldn't try to solve the problem who would do it in his place?<br>The Nordics left already and you couldn't really hope to get help form the Italians, Spain or Greece.  
>Belgium would rather eat her own shoe than picking a fight with England or France and a part of the former Eastern block countries was rising their vodka glasses on surviving another meeting in presence of Russia. Meanwhile America was slouching on a couch guzzling popcorn and watching the spectacle in front of him.<p>

Ludwig really didn't get why England was making such a fuss about the whole matter.  
>Everyone was able to see that he wasn't aversed by the thought of Francis sharing a room with him.<br>This was the reason for his outburst.  
>In hopes that someone would grant him asylum in their room and to maximise his own fun factor, Francis "forgot" to book a room.<br>To his chagrin, everyone he asked and tried to convince refused to let him sleep in their room.  
>England was the last one, he had asked. The Personification of Germany couldn't stop himself to believe, that Francis just asked everyone that came in question before, because he didn't want Arthur to refuse because of the fact that there were other possible beds, in which he could slip in.<br>Ludwig assumed, that the Kirkland also knew this, he was just too proud to show that he was happy to be with Francis and so had to make a scene in front of everyone.

France didn't even had the idea to ask Ludwig.  
>Blue eyes went cloudy by this thought. His eyebrows kissed each other above the nose and he grumbled quietly.<br>He knew, it wasn't the right moment to think about the fact that his favorite enemy and closest ally had someone he liked to fight and discuss even more than with him.  
>It was also quiet contra productive to get angry right now, just because he felt ignored.<br>There were only very few things he hated more than being ignored by his western neighbour.  
>The old longing for acceptance, the old wreath surged up within him for a few second until he was able to get control about his facial expressions again.<br>Cautiously he looked around if one of the remaining nations so him losing his clam, but noone seemed to pay attention to him or the fight of the disputants.  
>After getting up from the black leather armchair a bit clumsily, he smoothed down his wrinkled suit and made a few steps in England's direction to take the bar stool out of his hands, which Arthur was wielding over his head like a oversized bludgeon from the stone ages.<br>Wasn't it okay for Ludwig to be allowed to be a bit selfish from time to time?

„Do you think it is gentlemanlike to throw around with furniture, Arthur?"  
>He tried to sound as objectively as possible and saw to his relief, that the English mans bushy eyebrows curves upwards in direction of his hairline and that the pugnacious hands fell relaxed to the man's sides.<p>

Satisfied he felt Francis unhappy eyes staring at him.  
>„Instead of fight because of such a tiny organisatory problem, we should rather try to solve it." an almost invisible smile in his lips he looked his western neighbour in the face.<br>„It's okay for you to use my bed, Francis, if you want to. I reserved a room with a couch, since I didn't knew if my brother wanted to accompany me on this trip."

If looks could kill.  
>With his offer, he scuppered England's chance to finally say yes after loads of protest and, charitable like real gentleman should be, take the French in.<br>Francis seemed to be a bit disappointed too, but neither him nor England were in the position in which they could allow themself to refuse and lose their face in front of the remaining nations, who looked curiously at them because of the sudden stop of fighting.  
>Ludwig tried to appear businesslike and cold.<br>He was distinctly aware of the fact, that the other nation assumed him to be a but awkward when it came to emotional relations and feelings, so it was probably not a surprise for them that he apparently ignored the emotional dimensions of the fight and tried to solve it with a a purely organisational solution.  
>He didn't care what they thought. Actually it was quite convenient for him, that they thought of him as incapable to understand emotional subtexts and relations.<p>

„Great! Now I don't need to endure the presence of this frog-eating twat anymore!" Arthur hissed and stormed out of the room slamming the door behind him.  
>Francis' eyes followed him with a melancholic expression before he failed to disguise the ironical undertone in courtesy when he murmured a silent „Merci, Ludwig."<br>The German suppressed the triumphant grin that wanted to flash over his face and answered politely in his best French.  
>„De rien, Francis."<p>


	2. Chapter 2

Francis admitted, he shirked to go to sleep.

He joined Poland, Lithuania and Estonia at the bar to drink a few vodka. The three were pretty exhausted from being together with Russia for the whole day and tried give themself some liquid courage to survive the next day.

After a while Ukraine joined them, So the French used the rest of the evening trying to flirt with curvy blond to find a better alternative for sleeping with his eastern neighbour.

Not that he generelly hated Ludwig.  
>They're over that and...France is the country of love not that of hate.<p>

No he didn't hate that guy anymore...at least most of the time.

In the contrary, at times when the boy wasn't either being stubborn like hell (almost 86% of the time) or they were disputing about EU-intern stuff (13 % of the time), or both (17% of the time), he actually thought that Germany was almost okay...even cute.

Ludwig was, despite his excessive work ethics and the overwhelming shadow of his past, almost heart-wrenching naiveté.

Francis, as the „big brother of Europe" sometimes felt tempted to give him some extra lessons in the knowledge of human nature.  
>No.<p>

Francis really didn't hate him.

But he was boring.

More boring than toast without toppings or salted potatoes without side dishes.

He was „Stinkepupenöde", how his old friend Gilbert would say.

That's why, actually, watching his eastern neighbour doing paper ork or ironing business shirts wasn't Francis' ideal way to spend his evening.

...on the other hand, England didn't do anything else, whe he had to work the next day either...but England was easier to provoke, so it was much more fun to fight with England than with Germany.

When England got angry, he was breathing fire and brimstone, he was throwing around expletives and objects. He forgot his gentleman-Image and became loud and scurillous.

An angry Arthur was funny.

Ludwig in the contrary...

The German was someone who spoke pretty loud in generally and he always sounded a bit aggressive.

However, when you annoyed him to much, or if he was angry, he became quiet.

His language started to be sharp like a scalpel and found with astounding accuracy the points, that hurt the most.

It wasn't funny att all, when Ludwig got quiet.

If he looked at Francis intensely and you could see the cog weels work behind his forehead, it made him nervous.

Francis hated that.

Eventhough, after century of distrust, he was atleast trusting his eastern neighbour enough to think that he wouldn't kill him in his sleep, these centuries left scars in their relatioship that probably never go away.

An angry or hostile Germany never meant a good thing for France.

As long has Ludwig nagging, everything was fine...that was part of if personality and Francis actually got used to the critisising voice beside him.

But hen the voice wasn't there anymore...then he was in big trouble.

It was pretty late when Fracis to staggered in bee lines to the room that should be his home for the night. Russland saw Ukraine having fun with the guys and didn't look very happy about that, so the group of slightly (Ukraine, Estonia) to medium (Poland and Lithuania) and strongly drunk (France) people decided to say good bye. Sadly the chance to have a nice night with Ukraine's balcony also was scattered by Ivan who told Francis with a sincere smile, that flirting with his sister was a very bad idea.

Francis decided that was the right time to leave the scene.

After several unscheduled halts, and rumbling at several wrong doors he finally reached the right one. It was already dawning.

The hotel room was filled with soft violet light, that slowely made room for an intense peach colour.

The double bed was untouched except of a blanket and a pillow, hich were missing on one side of the mattress.

Ludwig was sleeping on the couch, that was by far to small for him.

The white blond fuzz of his legs, which poled out over the arm rest as glowing innocently in the morning sun.

For a venturesome moment Francis was musing if Ludwig if the German was actually wearing at least some under wear under the blanket, that he was tightly wrapped in.

As a caring and observant neighbour, he of course knew that several members of the Beilschmidt household prefered to sleep in the nude.

But he was much to tired to actually do something like that so he just lazily threw away his cloths and crouch in his adams costume into the king sized bed that he could no use alone.

Not even three hours later the poor man was woken up rudely by a earpiercing military march with drums and pipes.

Francis dragged the blanked above his head grumpily and heard how his room mate search for his cellphone grunting sleepy.

„Hrnn?!" was ther first human sound actually reminded to a language, after the enervating drumming finally stopped.

The following conversation, Francis overheard still pretending to sleep consisted of unarticulated muttering from Ludwigs side and the meticulous description of a fight Gilbert and his brother Bavaria from a much more awake sounding prussian Guy, who obviously has eaten a megaphone for breakfast.

After a few minutes, the French stopped having the illusion that he was actually able to go asleep again and poked out the head from his blanket fort discontently.

Ludwig was sitting crossed-legged on the couch, wearing boring, spotless white briefs and holding the cell phone half a meter away from his ears. It wasn't really clear if he was even listening to Gilbert, while he was scratching his touseled blond head yawning copiously.

It seemed like he didn't notice that Francis was actually awake.

All in all he lookd more like a little rascal than the perfectionitic rule fetishist, the he usually showed his surrounding.

Francis laughed huskily and turned around so he could lay on his stomach and rest the his hurting head on his fore-arms.

Perhaps some day he can banter Ludwig about it, he thought with a grin, watching how he was standing up sluggishly and padded into the bathroom, the cellphone still in his hand, with Gilbert loud, barking voice now accompanied by the muted quarrels of further family members of the German in the background.

The conversation was still monosyllabic from Ludwigs side, while Francis could witness him washing his face, shaving and brushing his teeth through the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar.

A sudden silence signalised, that Germany hung up.

Francis couldn't stop grinning, when he saw that his room-mate as leaving the bathroom, unpretentiously shrugging off his briefs on the way to his suitcase.

And long locks of the French attentive eyes noticed every move of the muscles under sunkissed champagne coloured skin, while Ludwig was getting dressed unsuspectingly.

Perhaps, Francis thought with a predator-like smile, perhaps it wasn't as bad as he thought, to sleep in Ludwigs room.

Such a gratis show almost compensated for his dry and boring character.


	3. Chapter 3

Ludwig hated getting up early.

And since his brother Gilbert knew that very well, he never failed to wake him up, so he wouldn't oversleep. It was the last rest of „big brother care" that was specially reserved for grumpy little brothers at half past 6 'o clock in the morning. It was kind of expected, that now that Ludwig wasn't at home, Gilbert would call him at the usual time and talk to him until he was awake enough to get the day didn't know if he should love this rare display of responsibility and predictability of his brother, or if he should hate it. At half past six it was probably the latter one.

After getting dressed, Ludwig turned around to see after his temporary roommate.  
>Francis still seemed to be sound asleep, which was no wonder, since must have been gone to bed very late. When the German decided to call it a night and left his paper work unfinished past midnight, he has still been gone.<br>Germany chuckled and the mattress sunk in, when sat down on the edge of the bed. „Sleeping like baby, old man!" I mumbled silently with a boy-like grin on his face. It was okay to be carefree, since there was noone there to see and mock him about acting this way.  
>„Sorry for destroying your chance to sleep in the same room with England." he whispered almost unaudible. „But I'm actually pretty bad at being altruistic, so you have to deal with the selfish brat next to you." He stroked a few of the wheat coloured strands our of Francis' face then he stood up to go get breakfast.<p>

The lunch hall was almost empty, when he came in. Switzerland was there, drinking coffee and working quietly on some papers. Netherlands, who obviously was eating food he brought from home.. he knew that guy and the breakfast in the hotel was much to expensive for the Dutch's taste. He nodded at him, making a comment that the pickled fish in his tupperware looked very tasty, then he got himself tea, baguette strawberry jam and sat down far enough of his two neighbouring countries, that everyone was was comfortable with not conversating.

Ludwig took a newspaper and read the headlines while taking the first sips of his tea.

He was already through the politics and the sports part of the paper and his plate was empty for almost half an hour, when he looking up and saw that the room was mostly filled by now.

Seeing England eating scrambled eggs and black pudding and noticing south Italy enjoying a fresh tomato salad, he decided it was time for second breakfast getting on his feet a bit clumsily he noticed the glare of his best's friends brother and straightened his back. „Good morning, Romano." he wished him coolish, but passing by before the other could answer.

He was in a much too positive mood to get nagged by that guy right now.

He decied for fried potatoes and scrambled eggs and focused intensely on the process of chopping everything in even pieces, so that he just had to fork them in, without struggling with the knife. It was still too early for good manners or  
>„Seriously, <em>dreutel.<em>" came a deep voice a few meters away. „Stop messing aroung with the food. You'll end up staining the tablecloth."Ludwig had to surpress the urge to roll his eyes.  
>„ Ja ja...I'll be careful." he muttered. Not that Netherlands really expected an he was called stingy and a neatfreak by the other countries. He grew up living next to Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, He had Swabia and Prussia as his brothers, what excactly did they expected him to be?!<p>

He took a sip of coffee and saw France entering the room, looking slightly nauseous as he had to too much alcohol and too few hours of sleep he looked terrible.  
>A small grin full of Schadenfreude ghosted over the Germans face but disappeared as fast as it Francis deserved this hungover. It was his decision to go drinking instead of spending sometime with his eastern neighbour after all.<p> 


End file.
